I’ve said. If they were related to each other in some way, rather than just being random elements scattered about.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s coincidental or not. You are allowed to reuse the common elements of a musical genre. There wouldn’t be any such thing as a genre if you couldn’t. To make a song in a genre you are intentionally using elements common to that genre. The point isn’t whether it’s coincidental or intentional. The point is that no one can own a genre.
To be fair, I think Go_Arachnid_Laser is arguing not that the coincidence in minor elements violates copyright, but that it is evidence that Dark Horse is intentionally copying the synth riff, and that would violate copyright.
But that only infringes a copyright if that synth riff by itself is protectable expression. That’s what I’m trying to get folks to see here—we never reach the question of whether actual copying took place if we can’t specifically answer the question of what exactly about the plaintiff’s work is protectable?
I don’t disagree, but it would seem that the courts do. Between this and Blurred Lines, and numerous cases being settled in spite of likely being without legal merit, it seems like it’s becoming part of the cost of being a pop star to pay off random people claiming that you’ve ripped off their obscure song that you’ve never heard in your life.
OK, I knew there was something nagging me about this case, and I’ve finally picked out what it is: The six notes in common between these two songs are, in fact, the first six notes of “Jolly Old St. Nicholas”. So just who was copying riffs, here?
It’s a lot more than just that. Take a look at this analysis
These songs are not similar enough to support infringement.
And what is similar about them isn’t original. It’s just common musical elements.
This musicologist totally snowjobbed the jury.
Congress should really take away jury trials in technical cases like this.
You just realized this, out of the blue? It just came to you in a flash? :dubious:
If what they took was equivalent to what Perry et al “took”? I’d be perfectly fine with that. I mean it all depends on how much they’ve taken or sampled. Bits and pieces? No problem. Bigger slices? I might want a small share of the credits. Really big pieces would mean a bigger share.
We need to reopen this discussion. The law has gone too far here. We could never get a masterpiece like Paul’s Boutique today with the current laws. It’s at the point where it hampers creativity.
Not really, no. I think it’s been a great thing that this has been happening for thousands of years. It’s a good thing.
Don’t really care what Greg Ham thinks. Or would’ve thought.
It only hampers the creativity of people who want to steal other people’s copyrighted creative works. There’s more music being made today than ever before, just less of the kind where thieves profit quite as much as you’d like.
I don’t think that the laws themselves changed. All the samples the Dust Brothers used were legally cleared. What has changed are the industry rates.
But here we have someone who, by that standard, stole someone else’s work, who is then suing yet another person for stealing from them. If you’re upset with Katy Perry selling a song she didn’t write, then you should be even more upset with Marcus Grey suing over a song he didn’t write.
The fact is, there are only so many possible six-note sequences, and there are an awful lot of songs. If sharing six notes is too much, then it’s impossible to write any new songs at all.
Which is clearly not the case.
There’s more to a tune than it being a bunch of notes strung together. They have to have a rhythm, a tempo, a pitch and so on. That allows you to play really complex melodies with a couple of notes.
And so clearly sharing six notes isn’t too much.
Of course not. That wasn’t the ruling at all, to begin with.
Why let facts stand in the way of an argument, tho, amirite?
Says the man who thinks copyright infringement is theft.
The “ruling” as such was a verdict of liability for infringement by a jury. Jury verdicts usually don’t offer a very good guide to what the actual standards and principles of the law are.
And if you look at the Adam Neely video I linked to before, it’s pretty damn clear that the plaintiff’s claimed work wasn’t original, not by a long shot.
All this shows that these kinds of decisions should be matters of law for experts, not juries, do determine.
I think that he proves that other works actually have the same notes. But as I said, there’s more to a tune than just the notes. Which means that Jolly Old Saint Nicholas actually sounds nothing like Dark Horse.